“Start menu” on Lenovo Windows 8 PCs will nag you to install apps

It looks kind of like a Start menu, but it's really an app store.

Windows users looking for something resembling the classic Start Menu that was stripped out of Windows 8 don't have to look too far. Several apps that roughly recreate the Start Menu's functionality can be downloaded and installed easily enough.

But some PC manufacturers are making Start menu replacements more visible to users—and we suspect not all PC users will appreciate the way they're going about it. SweetLabs, a company that makes one of these Start menu replacements, announced today that it has a deal with Lenovo to "preload SweetLabs’ Pokki software on new Lenovo PCs shipped worldwide, starting with consumer devices." That's a big deal, as Lenovo is now the top seller of PCs worldwide by some measures. SweetLabs already had a deal with Acer to preload Pokki and various Zynga games.

Today's Lenovo announcement prompted a Bloomberg story titled "Lenovo Turns to a Startup to Bring the Start Menu Back to Windows." But the devil is in the details. This isn't a straightforward replacement of Microsoft's iconic Start menu, which was left out of Windows 8 in favor of the touch-friendly Start screen. According to SweetLabs, Lenovo PCs "will include Pokki’s modern Start menu, app store, and game arcade out-of-the-box, all powered by SweetLabs’ dynamic app recommendation and distribution platform."

The Pokki app store even includes some Windows Store apps—which is kind of odd given that you can get those apps from the Windows Store.

Pokki's Start menu provides some familiarity, with access to the Windows control panel, power options, and programs and files. But it will also nag you to install new stuff. "Apps are dynamically recommended in the Pokki Start menu, app store, and game arcade to users by SweetLabs’ real-time app recommendation system," SweetLabs' press release notes.

Lenovo products preloaded with Pokki will "span multiple device types such as the IdeaPad laptops, ThinkPad laptops, IdeaCentre desktops, and will be available in multiple regions across the world," according to SweetLabs.

Peter Bright reviewed Pokki for Ars in January, saying it "doesn't strive to mimic any particular version of the Windows Start menu, and as such it's not plagued with the same dashed hopes and shattered expectations as Classic Shell," one of the other Start menu replacements. Pokki pre-dated Windows 8 as an application marketplace and launcher and morphed into a Start menu replacement after many Windows users complained about Microsoft's new interface.

Pokki hasn't changed much since we reviewed it. The difference now is that it's being preloaded into PCs, likely giving Acer and Lenovo some extra revenue through the partnership with SweetLabs and app sales. That puts it into the category of bloatware, pre-installed software that provides functionality that users may or may not need, which might even slow the computer down.

Whether "bloatware" is good or bad is in the eyes of the beholder, though. Many consumers may appreciate the familiarity offered by Pokki when making the sometimes jarring transition from earlier versions to Windows 8. Other users may prefer the Windows 8 interface as it is, or at least want to test out a few different Start menu alternatives and see which one they like best.

Lenovo already makes the mistake of making their bottom-left key on laptops the FN key instead of CTRL. I'll just add this to the pile. It's the 2010's version of bloatware: Custom start menus!

That's legacy IBM.Now onto my rant:

Start menus are like putting a hand crank in a car with an electric starter because people are used to there being a crank. This is like the dealer installing a crank after the manufacturer stopped making it. And then firing up the radio to blare ads at you every time you start the car.

Either you're using a touch interface where start menu is too damn small and fiddly or you're using a device with a keyboard where windows key search is far more easy and efficient way to get to what you need than hunting through a menu.

And yes, I thought it was a bone head move by MS when Win8 came out. I'm now convinced it's the right thing to do... well other than the location of shutdown, but realistically, I don't need a menu for that if the machine's power switch functions like it supposed to.

The reality is that even long time Windows hacks aren't 100% sure of what is bloatware and what is necessary for the PC to run. The column Publisher in Control Panel -> Programs and Features gives a good clue but if the bloatware is installed by the OEM, as is the case here, all bets are off.

The best way I've found to get rid of programs I wasn't sure whether they were necessary for the PC's health is "Autoruns" from SysInternals. It lets you deactivate modules temporarily. It may be time consuming but can't think of anything better.

Lenovo already makes the mistake of making their bottom-left key on laptops the FN key instead of CTRL. I'll just add this to the pile. It's the 2010's version of bloatware: Custom start menus!

BIOS option to switch, mate.

Insufficient. The keys are different sizes due to the change, and every other person using the laptop has to do the mental flip game due to said BIOS switch, since the keys themselves say something different. I know it's pedantic, but they really ought to have the option for a regular keyboard layout on the majority of their laptops. :\

I have generally adapted, but I live on the desktop and just pin every app to quick start (it's still there, hiding) or the taskbar.

However, the biggest failing for the new start screen is when a legacy app puts icons in subfolders. The start screen (all apps) only shows you the contents of the top folder. It won't even tell you that the subfolder(s) exist. Not that we need to add even MORE clutter to this horrible wall of icons, but not being able to expand/collapse folders is a real letdown.

I don't really need the start menu to return, but it would be nice to be able to add metro apps to the desktop quick start and/or taskbar. I'd probably use more of the metro apps if that were true, just because they'd be more accessible.

Can you disable the "recommended apps" display and hide the link to their app store? In other words, can you make it act like it's only a Start menu replacement? If so, annoying but not terrible. If it's advertising-mandatory bloatware, terrible. I read the linked Pokki review and it doesn't say.

I wonder if PC manufacturers will ever figure out that part of the reason for declining sales figures is their insistence on including nagware, adware, bloatware, cheap hardware, bad design, and pointless stickers all over the case.

While we're on the subject of adapting to technology, I propose that we all switch over to Dvorak keyboards. If you haven't used one, give it a go. Technically, they are much more efficient than QWERTY keyboards. However, if you're fluent with a QWERTY keyboard , they are a total PITA to adapt to...

I think this shows one of the differences between heavy Mac users and heavy PC users. PC users will put up with things that waste time and frustrate them far more than Mac users will.

If someone pulled this on a Mac, there'd be hell to pay. On PC, it's business as usual. I'll never understand that mentality. I don't get on my Mac to have ads and crap forced onto me by my operating system. I don't have time for and need to get work done, communicate and/or surf the web, etc.

Life is too short to do Windows. I liked Windows 7 much better, but now Microsoft has regressed with Windows 8 almost as if to punish it's user for sticking with them instead of switching to Mac.

No wonder Windows 8 is a complete failure when on top of everything else you have venders continuing the horrible tradition of crapware, bloatware, adware infested machines being your starting point with a new computer.

And every IT department just cried as they had another piece of bloatware to scrub from their corporate contract with Lenovo, the only reason they sell devices at a volume large enough to be the leader. Is it really too difficult to ask a company to manufacture an aluminum ultrabook with a haswell chip, fresh install of Win8.1 and large enough battery to allow 10+ hours of reasonable computing performance?

I wonder if PC manufacturers will ever figure out that part of the reason for declining sales figures is their insistence on including nagware, adware, bloatware, cheap hardware, bad design, and pointless stickers all over the case.

Do you *really* think customers actually *want* this kind of rubbish?

This is why I ended up buying a Macbook after a decade of using PC's.

The crapware infuriates me too. However, without the income generated from installing crapware, manufacturers would have to charge us 10% - 25% more for the same system. I'm tech savvy enough to re-install the OS and latest drivers, so I welcome the 10% - 25% decrease in price.

This is really audacious, in my opinion. This isn't just HP or Dell putting their shitty, resource-hogging launcher application across the top of my screen. This is straight up replacing a core element of the OS's UX; even more, it's doing so by plugging in a third-party utility whose support is out-of-house for both of the obvious vendors of the product (ie, Lenovo and Microsoft).

Even more, presumably (based on the usual bloatware methodology) it'll be a total fucking pain to be fully rid of, the option for which will only be available in an obscure and not-easily-discovered location. This, in turn, will shit all over performance from the get-go, let alone after the normal course of PC use slows everything down across the board.

It's just unbelievable that Lenovo, who are actually doing pretty OK, are choosing this route. As has been mentioned, it hurts their corporate users right in the IT department. Plus, it will negatively impact their brand in the long run.

If people want a new (old?) start menu, fine, to each their own. But preloading some random third-party software to make that the default behavior is crazy.

Lenovo already makes the mistake of making their bottom-left key on laptops the FN key instead of CTRL. I'll just add this to the pile. It's the 2010's version of bloatware: Custom start menus!

BIOS option to switch, mate.

Insufficient. The keys are different sizes due to the change, and every other person using the laptop has to do the mental flip game due to said BIOS switch, since the keys themselves say something different. I know it's pedantic, but they really ought to have the option for a regular keyboard layout on the majority of their laptops. :\

Cannot upvote this enough. I don't care if it's an old IBM thing; Lenovo has not been IBM for a long time, and they haven't bothered to fix it.

For a while, Lenovo's Windows 8 review/demo laptops were shipping with Start8 installed. I was hoping they would make the plunge and decide to do that for all business notebooks, as it is quality software, and makes a huge difference to the Windows 8 user experience in a business setting.

Many people seem to have sent them similar feedback, asking for Start8 to be standard. Their forums are full of comments to that effect.

It seems that Lenovo heard the message loud and clear. Then someone thought: "How can we monetize this with an app store partnership?".

It's a shame. Start8 is a much better solution, especially in a business setting where you absolutely don't want an uncontrolled app store on the user desktop.

It's also typical of Lenovo's increasing shift away from business users. When we buy standard non-customised builds these days, there is so much crap to strip away, from trial software to utilities that can't run without admin rights (which end-users obviously won't have).

And every IT department just cried as they had another piece of bloatware to scrub from their corporate contract with Lenovo, the only reason they sell devices at a volume large enough to be the leader. Is it really too difficult to ask a company to manufacture an aluminum ultrabook with a haswell chip, fresh install of Win8.1 and large enough battery to allow 10+ hours of reasonable computing performance?

Are we to infer from your comment that IT departments manually uninstall each piece of software from the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of PCs they purchase each year?

No, of course not. IT departments of any reasonable size buy blank PCs, and image them with a volume licensed copy of the OS.

A full screen program list is unnecessary, and swapping between "metro" and desktop is inconsistent. Its simply poor design.

Let me get this straight: you care about consistency, and you use windows. LOL! Since when has windows ever been consistent? There are a million UI styles just among microsoft's own software, and third parties are even worse.

Full screen is necessary, live tiles need to be big and are a great feature. I have a 30" screen on my PC and I'm glad it takes up the whole thing - I can, just, see all my commonly used programs at once.

People whining for a start menu deserve to have to deal with crapware like this.

The start menu has been pointless ever since Vista, and I feel not one tiny bit of sympathy for Luddites that desperately cling to it.

A full screen program list is unnecessary, and swapping between "metro" and desktop is inconsistent. Its simply poor design.

Plus the windows store is useless, and "metro apps" are a joke.

None of this has anything to do with the Start Menu getting dropped. Once we could search with with the win key, the start menu became pointless.

You can, but bear in mind that the gui does not exist because of its efficiency, and more often than not a mouse is a slower way to control a computer. The start menu (although maybe not under that name) is a paradigm that is easy to understand. Hot corners and searching (especially by pressing the windows key) are less intuitive alternatives.

And every IT department just cried as they had another piece of bloatware to scrub from their corporate contract with Lenovo, the only reason they sell devices at a volume large enough to be the leader. Is it really too difficult to ask a company to manufacture an aluminum ultrabook with a haswell chip, fresh install of Win8.1 and large enough battery to allow 10+ hours of reasonable computing performance?

The hell?! IT will just load a scripted install or disk image just like they always do. IT are the last people that will be affected by this.

I think this shows one of the differences between heavy Mac users and heavy PC users. PC users will put up with things that waste time and frustrate them far more than Mac users will.

If someone pulled this on a Mac, there'd be hell to pay. On PC, it's business as usual. I'll never understand that mentality. I don't get on my Mac to have ads and crap forced onto me by my operating system. I don't have time for and need to get work done, communicate and/or surf the web, etc.

Life is too short to do Windows. I liked Windows 7 much better, but now Microsoft has regressed with Windows 8 almost as if to punish it's user for sticking with them instead of switching to Mac.

No wonder Windows 8 is a complete failure when on top of everything else you have venders continuing the horrible tradition of crapware, bloatware, adware infested machines being your starting point with a new computer.

I don't usually comment twice in the same thread, but this is sufficiently different from my other comment that I'm OK doing it.

Two things: 1) There is no "someone" for a MacBook. It's Apple. They control everything about that laptop. Clearly, they think their default OS setup is the best, and would never plug in some other option from another company by default. So that comment is ridiculous right off the bat. Which, of course, leads to 2) YOU don't like Windows 8 != it is a bad OS. You are allowed to have your opinion, but it is the peak of arrogance (one which tech comment threads know quite well) to make absolute statements about the quality of any options when, in the end, it's all a series of trade-offs and evaluations of importance.